Tidbits: Pumpkin season

Article by: AL SICHERMAN

Star Tribune

October 31, 2012 - 3:00 PM

Pumpkin season

Now, in addition to the existing umpteen flavors and consistencies of Philadelphia cream cheese, there's a "limited edition" flavor: pumpkin spice. Mr. Tidbit believes that the limitedness of this edition of cream cheese is seasonality, and that we might soon see limited-edition eggnog flavor or fruitcake cream cheese.

(Cool Whip currently offers two "Season's Delight" flavors: cinnamon and French vanilla. The latter seems to have been available in every season since 2004.)

Plenty of flavors

Jell-O gelatin mix (Mr. Tidbit is speaking of the little boxes, not the prepared tubs) comes in quite a few flavors. But if you thought there already was mango Jell-O, until now you were wrong. Now you're not. (Ditto if, inexplicably, you thought there already was cherry lemonade Jell-O.)

Mr. Tidbit wasn't going to mention those developments until it occurred to him that they, too, might be "limited edition" or seasonal offerings. He hadn't noticed any such suggestion when he saw them in the store, but Philadelphia cream cheese, Cool Whip and Jell-O are all Kraft products, and might be following similar strategies. He hadn't actually bought either new flavor, so he couldn't immediately examine the packages. Rather than go back to the store, he decided to check online.

It is Mr. Tidbit's bitter experience that company websites are almost never up-to-date, whether in listing new products or in removing products that have strutted and fretted their hour upon the shelf and are heard no more. Indeed, neither mango nor cherry lemonade appeared in the lineup of flavors on the Jell-O website. But Mr. Tidbit wasn't prepared for how many flavors were there: